Month: October 2008

Public Policy Polling (10/28-30, likely voters):

Jeff Merkley (D): 51

Gordon Smith (R-inc): 43

Dave Brownlow (C): 4

(MoE: ±2.6%)

Those are beautiful numbers, but these are even better: 59% of likely voters have filled in their ballots so far, and of that group, Merkley is ahead by 59-37. My crude back-of-the-cocktail napkin analysis says that Smith would have to take roughly two-thirds of the outstanding vote in order to pull off a win here. And while Smith leads among likely voters who have yet to complete their ballots (by 51-39 over Merkley), that’s not enough to erase the strong early edge that Merkley has built up.

Bonus finding: Obama leads McCain by 56-42.

UPDATE by Crisitunity:

Rasmussen (10/30, likely voters, 10/14 in parentheses):

Jeff Merkley (D): 49 (47)

Gordon Smith (R-inc): 46 (47)

Some other: 4 (n/a)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Rasmussen polls Oregon too, and the results are good, with Merkley up by 3. Now 3 might not seem that confidence-inspiring compared with other pollsters’ numbers in this race, but bear in mind that a) this is the first time Merkley has sported a lead in a Rasmussen poll, and b) Rasmussen keeps on not including Dave Brownlow of the Constitution Party, who is bleeding off votes on Smith’s right flank (although this time they do report that 4% plan to vote for ‘some other’ candidate).

Public Policy Polling has a fresh survey right out of the oven (10/28-30, likely voters):

Al Franken (DFL): 45

Norm Coleman (R): 40

Dean Barkley (IP): 14

(MoE: ±3.0%)

Coleman takes 85% of Republicans and Franken holds 81% of Democrats, with Barkley taking a roughly equal share from each party. That’s pretty good news, but it’s tempered by a pair of recent polls — including one by Rasmussen — showing Coleman with the lead. Here’s the other:

Mason-Dixon (10/27-28, likely voters):

Al Franken (DFL): 36

Norm Coleman (R): 42

Dean Barkley (IP): 12

(MoE: ±4.0%)

I admire all you brave souls who have taken a stab at this race in our predictions contest thread. This one is real tossup.

A new PPP poll just released shows Al Franken leading Norm Coleman 45-40, with 14 giong to Barkley.  

Also, Obama leads Minnesota by a big 57-41 margin. Obama may just drag Al Franken across the finish line first.

http://www.publicpolicypolling…

The race for US Senate in Minnesota is close, but Al Franken has a definite lead at this juncture in the contest.

Only 76% of Obama voters are planning to vote for Franken, quite a difference from the 85% of McCain supporters going for Coleman. But with Obama headed for a dominant victory in the state, it looks like as of today his coattails would be enough to bring Franken across the finish line.

http://publicpolicypolling.blo…

Also just released is a set of PPP polls for West Virginia, where McCain leads Obama 55-42.

http://www.publicpolicypolling…

Just as we did in 2006, the Swing State Project is having a downballot election prediction contest. We’ve handpicked fourteen hot House and Senate races (and one gubernatorial race) from all across the country for you to think hard about and submit your best guesses.

The rules are simple: Only one entry per person will be accepted (so if you post multiple revisions, we’re only going to look at your last post), submitted as a comment in this thread (e-mail submissions will be junked). Submissions will be accepted until midnight Eastern on Monday, November 3rd.

What we’re interested in is the final margin between the Democratic and Republican candidates (except for the tiebreaker), and the goal is to have the lowest score possible. So if you think that Debbie Cook will beat Dana Rohrabacher by a score of 55-45, what we care about is that you think it’s going to be D+10. If she wins 53-47, that’s D+6, so you get four “error points” added to your score. (Remember, fewer points = better.)

This also means that if Cook wins 50-40 (and third parties take the rest), you’ve still “nailed it” according to our system and get a perfect score of zero for the race. If, on the other hand, you call it D+10 and it winds up being R+10, you’ll get 20 points added to your score.

So let’s cut to the chase! Here are the races that we’ve selected:

WA-Gov: Gregoire (D) v. Rossi (R)

AK-Sen: Stevens (R) v. Begich (D)

MS-Sen-B: Wicker (R) v. Musgrove (D)

CA-46: Rohrabacher (R) v. Cook (D)

FL-25: M. Diaz-Balart (R) v. Garcia (D)

LA-01: Scalise (R) v. Harlan (D)

NE-02: Terry (R) v. Esch (D)

NH-01: Shea-Porter (D) v. Bradley (R)

NM-02: Tinsley (R) v. Teague (D)

NY-13: Straniere (R) v. McMahon (D)

OH-02: Schmidt (R) v. Wulsin (D)

PA-11: Kanjorski (D) v. Barletta (R)

TX-22: Lampson (D) v. Olson (R)

WY-AL: Lummis (R) v. Trauner (D)

And the tiebreaker:

MN-Sen: Coleman (R) v. Franken (D) v. Barkley (IP)

Ideally, your entries should look something like:

WA-Gov: D+6

AK-Sen: R+8

And so forth. However, for the tiebreaker (MN-SEN), please predict the EXACT FINAL SCORE for each candidate. You are free to predict final scores for the other races as well, but you’ll make our lives a lot easier if you list the expected margin first as shown above.

Once again, the deadline for your submissions is midnight Eastern on Monday — so get your predictions in soon. The top three finishers (ie, those with the lowest overall scores) will be treated to some of SSP’s favorite chocolate babka (as pictured here).

Have at it!

SurveyUSA (10/28-29, likely voters, 9/24-25 in parens):

Alice Kryzan (D): 34 (37)

Chris Lee (R): 48 (48)

Other/Undecided: 18

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Sigh — what an ugly picture this is. The “Other/Undecided” vote is especially high for a SUSA poll, and perhaps that number includes a few folks who are intending to pull the lever for Jon Powers, who is still stuck on the Working Families Party line. Indeed, a full 20% of Democrats are in that column.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

Mason-Dixon is now out with a poll showing Al Franken down 42-36.  Is this another GOP-leaning M-D poll, or is Al really tanking?  M-D does seem to suggest that Dean Barkley is hurting Franken a lot more than Coleman.  I am definitely beginning to worry about this one.

From Political Wire:

Though Sen. Barack Obama holds a decent lead in Minnesota’s presidential race, his party’s U.S. Senate candidate is lagging behind.

A new NBC News/Mason-Dixon survey finds Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) leading challenger Al Franken (D) by six points, 42% to 36%, with 12% favoring Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley.

Analysis: “If Coleman puts daylight between Franken’s numbers and his own on Election Day, he may have Barkley to thank.  While he has shored up 89% of voters who identify as Republicans, with  only 4% defecting to Barkley’s camp, only about three out of four Democrats say that they support their party nominee, with 17% of Democratic voters favoring the Independence Party candidate over Franken.”

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com…

OnMessage Inc. for John Kennedy (10/27-29, likely voters, 10/14-16 in parens):

Mary Landrieu (D-inc): 45 (47)

John Kennedy (R): 44 (42)

(MoE: ±3.3%)

A pollster we’re friendly with (who’s gone into the field in this race many times) sums this poll up in one word: bullshit. He thinks it’s likely juked to suck in a little last-minute PAC money and to ward off demoralization in the final weekend. YMMV, but don’t say we didn’t warn you.

UPDATE: A new Loyola University poll has different result (10/24-26, likely voters):

Mary Landrieu (D-inc): 49

John Kennedy (R): 34

(MoE: ±4.5%)

The same poll has McCain leading Obama by only 43-40, which seems a bit on the optimistic side.